Author's Note: This is the darkest fic I have ever written. Please heed the warnings. Beta reading done by the inimitable rg.

Prologue

I am running.

The wind blows in my face, catching loose pieces of my hair, and flings them back into my eyes. Droplets of rain clog my vision as I press on, ever on, through the dark.

I can hear them now, dogging my heels. In spite of my desperate flight, I know they will soon take me; I know that soon, very soon, my life will be forfeit.

The thought of my demise spurs me on. My feet hasten, though I know I cannot maintain such a pace. Soon . . .

I push through a close stand of trees, and my cloak catches, pulling me back and dragging me to my knees. I claw at the clasp, forgetting how it opens in my frantic rush. A gift from my late boyfriend, it is forgotten on the ground as I straighten and surge forward.

A crash, much closer than the last, causes me to look back, and I trip over a fallen limb, sprawling in the rapidly dampening ground. My lungs and legs aflame, I briefly wonder how much longer I can do this, how much longer I shall be able to evade them.

My answer comes when I see the first dark-robed figure step into my view. Silver mask glinting in the moonlight, his gaze falls upon me for the briefest moment.

I go absolutely still. Even my blistering need for air abates, and I lower my head to the ground. Maybe, somehow, perhaps he didn't . . .

He takes one step toward my slapdash hiding place, and I know that I am lost.

Another dark figure crashes into my view and joins the first.

"Which way?" the new arrival asks. I cringe, waiting for the words that will end my life.

"I am uncertain." The deep voice of the first astonishes me.

Of course he's certain! Some quickly-quelled suicidal tendency screams. He was looking directly at me, for Merlin's sake!

"He will be very angry for this." The emphasis on the first word makes clear just who "he" is. The Dark Lord, Voldemort. Leader of the ever growing Death Eaters. And soon, unless I am sorely mistaken, leader of wizarding Britain.

"Indeed." I perk up at the voice, so familiar, but from from where?

Without a further glance my way, the two men disappear from my sight, heading off into the woods. Searching.

I gasp for air, filling my lungs and flip to my back. With a low chuckle, I celebrate my narrow escape. Though I am now laying in a mudhole, I am grateful to be alive. I was so certain of my doom in those final moments . . .

And then I gasp again, remembering from where I knew the voice. It was He. The Traitor.

Snape.

I.

It seems that I cannot escape this place. I have tried, oh, how I have tried. But every time I set foot outside my secret-kept haven, nary a minute passes before I am running for my life. This latest attempt was my fifth such venture, no different from the last, save for the fact that I've never been so close to actually being caught.

We should have known better than to come back here, after . . . In the back of our minds, we knew what we would find, but we had to come. There was nothing left for us out there, and we were still Gryffindor enough to think we could make it without being caught. I have to admit that a large part of me wouldn't let me rest until I saw the remains of my childhood with my own eyes. And so, one cloudy summer morning, we made our way back to Hogwarts.

The utter destruction left me speechless.

I thought I could handle it. I could not.

I think we both nearly went mad in those first days, after we found the rotting corpses. I still don't know how we managed to make it to the Shack. I wake up some nights, dreaming of those faces, unmarred, pure, as they were rowed across the lake, eager visages alight, ready to begin their education. That, I'm afraid, was a very long time ago. A different world, perhaps.

I still don't understand what happened here. I can not fathom how people could let these children die; their own children! Didn't that mean anything anymore? Were they so afraid of Voldemort that they would abandon even the most basic of human instincts? It didn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. I suspect that no matter how long I live, five more days, five decades, this situation will never make sense to me.

I'm holed up now, alone in the Shrieking Shack. Ron and I cast the Fidelius Charm on it just after Harry . . . after Harry died. We hid here for days, waiting for something, a sign, anything! Just something that would tell us we were safe. If we could just make it off the old school grounds . . .

Some time ago (two months? three?), Ron left to find food.

He did not return.

And now I wait here, alone, trying to escape, but failing. My body is frail, and I feel weaker by the day. I would have starved already if not for the rats. They've never seemed susceptible to the Fidelius, a fact for which I can't decide if I'm thankful or disgusted.

No matter. Tomorrow I will try again, my last attempt.

Tomorrow.